


One Delight Once More

by Ashura



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Reunion Sex, Sirius Black Lives, post-resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4756121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashura/pseuds/Ashura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps a part of him still feels like he is dreaming, like if he sees this bizarre hallucination through to its conclusion he will wake up to find Sirius was never there at all. Or maybe it is a simpler fear, the kind without a name, because he has lost this twice already and does not think he would survive a third time. Or perhaps it is only that touching Sirius burns the skin, the way looking at him too long burns the eyes, like staring into the sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Delight Once More

**Author's Note:**

> I have apparently been overcome with nostalgia over the last week, and this happened. Any fic where Sirius comes back from the Veil is AU, although it takes place in roughly the same universe as [The Great Beyond](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2464217), which happened before we knew everything.

_Has this been thus before?_  
 _And shall not thus time's eddying flight_  
 _Still with our lives our love restore_  
 _In death's despite,_  
 _And day and night yield one delight once more?_  
– Dante Gabriel Rosetti, _Sudden Light_

Moonlight glows in the window, faint and silver – barely a moon at all, a safe slim crescent, and for that Remus is grateful. He needs time to process, time to think, and for this, he needs to be human.

The dim glow makes shadows of his abandoned bed, where rumpled blankets lay mostly discarded. It illuminates the skin of the man asleep in it, gaunt and stretched and marked by unexplained scars. Sirius is hard to look at, sometimes: a little too Real, his outline too stark, his eyes, when they are open, too bright. Remus does not know how he came back from the Veil, and Sirius does not know how to explain it to him.

But back he is. He has altered, but not as much as Remus might have expected. He's mad, to be sure, but no more, and in a quieter way, than he had been. He remembers some things wrong and others not at all, and sometimes forgets when he is. He is nearly always cold, and yet astonishingly careless of his own comfort. He finds the taste of things too bitter, and has eaten most of Remus's stash of chocolate. He quotes fragments of poetry and says things which do not make sense. 

Remus cannot find it in himself to mind any of these things, even the way it hurts the eyes sometimes, looking at him. Or the way, when Sirius looks back, he never quite knows what to say.

The room still smells like flowers, though he's cleaned most of them away. He'd gone away in the morning, and when he came back, his room was full of them. Sirius was standing in the middle of it all, forlorn and wondering and staring at his wand. His magic is an unpredictable thing now, wild and uncontrollable; it crackled like lightning along his skin. He looked up at Remus and said, “I'm sorry.”

Remus had not known what to say. He setted for, “Don't be,” and waded through a sea of daisies.

“I wanted to do something nice for you.” Sirius looked sheepish. He had faded a little, and the lightning was gone. 

_As if you haven't done enough?_ Remus thought, and perhaps he meant to say, but there were white rose petals in Sirius's hair, and it distracted him. He reached up to brush one away. “And it got a little out of hand?” It was easy to smile, somehow, then. “How very unlike you.” 

His fingertips brushed Sirius's cheekbone, lingered there for a heartbeat or two. He could feel bone beneath them, and the hollow where it sunk into his eye and his cheek. There was so little flesh now, only skin stretched over bone. Sirius had been intoxicatingly beautiful, once. Now he was gaunt, tired, his eyes raw and haunted. Remus knows he is not an objective audience. Sirius is alive again, somehow; that is beauty enough.

The haunted eyes had closed, and Sirius had stood very still. “I just wanted to make sure you knew,” he whispered. 

Knew what? Remus did not ask. It is cowardice on his part, because if he knows Sirius will say it, given half a chance. Not that he needs to. You don't survive everything Sirius Black has been through if you don't love. 

And so they had just cleaned up the flowers, or at least corralled them, and then Remus made them both tea. Sirius tires easily now; he has not been alive again for long and _Being_ seems to exhaust him. Remus invited him to stay, but had not done more.

He doesn't know why that is. Perhaps a part of him still feels like he is dreaming, like if he sees this bizarre hallucination through to its conclusion he will wake up to find Sirius was never there at all. Or maybe it is a simpler fear, the kind without a name, because he has lost this twice already and does not think he would survive a third time. Or perhaps it is only that touching Sirius burns the skin, the way looking at him too long burns the eyes, like staring into the sun. 

He sits by the window and tries to read, and gives up and stares. It isn't interesting, really, watching someone sleep, except if that someone has recently been dead and one is still trying to figure out why they aren't anymore. And what are the lingering side-effects of having been dead. And if there will be a point when this won't frighten him, when touching won't burn. When he will do more than look.

“Moony.” He must not have been watching closely, because he doesn't notice when Sirius stirs awake. But the lean body sprawled across his bed has not moved; only the eyelids have fluttered open. 

Remus's mouth is suddenly very dry, but he makes himself smile. “Yes, Padfoot?” 

“Why are you all the way over there?” He sounds innocent, confused. The sheets stir and the moonlight with them as Sirius sits up. Even in the dark the Azkaban tattoos are starkly visible against his skin. “Was I kicking? Sorry.”

“No, you weren't.” He was still, too still, and that seems strange to Remus too. “I just couldn't sleep.” He rises and pads back to the bed. “You all right?” 

Sirius nods, scooting over to make room for him, even though there's plenty of space already. “Of course. I'm here.” A pause, silence, stretching till it's taut. “Are you?” 

“Of course.” Remus answers too quickly, so that even if it's true, it doesn't sound like it. Sirius flinches, and his fingers tighten in the sheet. 

“Do you...not want me here? I can go.” There's something pitiful, but then, there has been, since he came back. The bitterness is gone, burned away by desperation, as if this final triumph over death itself has left him empty of anything extraneous. It is exhausting, sometimes, being the object of such intense focus. 

But there is a lump in Remus's throat and no, no he does not want Sirius to leave. “No,” he says, much too quickly again, but this time it's the right thing. He swallows. “No, Padfoot, I very much do not want you to go.” 

Sirius's smile is dazzling, even in his wasted face. “Good.” His fingers loosen, and he wraps them thoughtfully around Remus's hand, tracing its outline. “You're afraid. I can see it, but I don't know why.” 

Remus thinks his hand is beginning to glow, so he looks away from it. It means looking into Sirius's face, and that is dangerous too. “Well, that doesn't surprise me,” he says with forced carelessness. “Since I don't know why either.”

“But you are.” Remus nods. Somehow it feels like an accomplishment, to have that much in the open. He's been trying to pretend everything is normal, for Sirius's sake, but that's stupid. It isn't normal, and Sirius knows that better than anyone. 

“I think,” he says slowly, not completely sure if he's telling the truth, “I'm afraid to find out it's not real.” 

Sirius regards him closely, perfectly still. At last he asks, as Remus forces himself not to squirm, “What if I kiss you? Then will it feel real?” 

A harsh, bitter choke of a laugh tears itself free from Remus's mouth. “I don't know, I really don't. It wouldn't be the first time you kissed me and I woke up.”

“Oh,” says Sirius, but the fleeting sorrow that crosses his face is gone with a smile. “I'm going to do it anyway.” 

He gives Remus no chance to protest, not that he would have anyway. Sirius's mouth is hot and eager and makes Remus dizzy. Best of all it's _familiar_ ; there is no sense of the strangeness that infects everything Sirius does. It's different because _they_ are different, older and thinner and more tired, but it feels right. It feels like them. Remus feels his heart unclenching.

“Well?” Sirius asks, soft and breathless, against his lips. 

Remus touches his face again, his palm flat against Sirius's cheek. “You _are_ real.”

Sirius's grey eyes are bright and bottomless, his smile brilliant. “Yes. I did tell you.” 

“I know.” Remus's breath catches in his throat. “It's not that I didn't believe. It just seems...so much. I've had a little trouble taking it all in.” 

Sirius cocks his head, puzzled, his lips grazing Remus's palm. It makes Remus's heart jump, his skin flush. “Harry didn't have this much trouble believing it.” 

“Of the two of us,” Remus reminds him, “Harry is more used to miracles.” He is not surprised when Sirius takes this as a cue to pull him close, flush against his chest, and hold on tight. 

“Moony,” he whispers, “how do you want this to go?” 

When Remus doesn't answer immediately, it's really just because he's trying to determine to just which 'this' Sirius is referring. This night? The next five minutes? The entirety of this new life after death? He takes too long about it, can feel Sirius going tense against him.

“Moony. Please.” Sirius pulls back, long gaunt fingers digging into Remus's shoulder. He is glowing again, and not only from the moonlight; his image is sharper than the shadows in the rest of the room and Remus can't look directly at him. “I want it to be perfect.”

Remus eases out of Sirius's fierce grip, but doesn't move away, just circles a hand loosely around his wrist. He adds lightly, “When have we ever been perfect?” 

Sirius ducks his head, and behind his tangled hair is the shadow of a grin. “Well, _I_ was. I can't speak for you.” 

That's the old Sirius, and Remus can't help but admit – “Yes. You were.” 

The grin flares and fades like a falling star, and those bottomless eyes are fixed on his face again. “And now?” 

This time, Remus doesn't look away. He thinks his eyes might be starting to adjust. “You're a wonder.”

Sirius makes a small, delighted sound and leans in again. The kiss he presses to the corner of Remus's mouth is tender, but barely restrained. “Then can we have our reunion now?” 

This time, Remus doesn't ask what he means. It's clear enough, the way Sirius's body is arching unconsciously toward him like a magnet. He doesn't try to claim they've had a reunion already, even though Sirius has been here for days. It's been confusion and longing and trying to act as if everything is perfectly normal and being afraid to touch. Chocolate frogs, a chaos of flowers, attempts at explanations. There had been so much left unfinished between them, even before, and Remus had not known how to broach it. 

But now, looking at the too-stark outline of his oldest friend and only real lover, he wonders if he even needed to. Sirius has literally clawed his way back from death, performed an actual miracle, to come back to him. The hard questions can surely wait. 

“Yes,” he breathes against Sirius's lips. And, “I'm sorry.” 

His apology, whatever it's for, is left to fend for itself. Sirius crooks a finger under Remus's chin and stares at him hard, shards of moonlight reflecting in his eyes like sharp, glittering diamonds. He makes a soft, desperate noise and kisses him again, hard and hungry, and Remus feels his heart break.

It is the exquisite sort of heartbreak that doesn't end in sorrow, but rather exists through it – the pain of betrayal and parting, not only once, but also of finding and returning. It is the sting of nails against old scars, the salt of unshed tears and bottled-up hurt, the joy of being able to feel this again, when it had been lost. 

Sirius bears him backward, down onto the bed. Remus gazes up at him, outlined against the cloudy window, shining with moonlight and magic. For a moment he catches a glimpse of the boy Sirius used to be – young and glorious and full of promise, with a way of looking at Remus with such fierce concentration it was like he was the only person in the world. That look hasn't changed in all this time, and Remus crushes him close and kisses him.

Sirius's hand slips under Remus's t-shirt, pushing the fabric up his chest. For a moment he pauses, his fingers splayed across Remus's chest, over his heart. Remus tries to catch his breath. 

Sirius whispers, playful – “Too many clothes.” 

Remus does laugh, then. It's so normal, and he wants it so very, very much. “It's only a t-shirt, Padfoot. Hardly enough to thwart you at this point.” 

He's rewarded with another dazzling grin, and Sirius tugging his shirt off over his head. “Good point.” Then they're both bare-chested and pressed together again, and Remus is too distracted to catalogue the changes in their bodies since the last time. His hasn't changed much anyway – they'd been through all this in Grimmauld Place, getting to know each other's older, slower, less flexible selves. But Sirius's body is newer, reborn, or maybe it isn't – the scars are still there, the tattoos, the visible signs of all his ordeals. Remus remembers it, what to do with it, how to touch it. He surprises himself with how eager he is to put this knowledge to use.

He rolls them over, pressing Sirius into the mattress beneath him. Why did it take him so long to get here? He kisses Sirius's mouth, the line of his jaw, the sharp jut of his collarbone rising from stretched skin. He traces the angular planes of Sirius's chest with his tongue and slides lower, reclaiming every inch, and beneath him Sirius's breath becomes a litany of ragged moans. There is something salty and metallic in the taste of his skin, beneath the lingering scent of flowers. 

“Moony –” Hoarse, throaty, perfect. Remus's fingers have just circled Sirius's cock; it bounces to attention in his hand. 

He looks up. Sirius is half-balanced on one elbow, just off the mattress, watching him. His mouth is open, his eyes very dark indeed. Remus tells him, “I really should give you a proper welcome back.”

“Oh,” says Sirius, and tries again. “Yes. Please.” 

Remus pushes Sirius back down onto the mattress and takes him into his mouth. A part of his brain, disengaged from the cloud of _Need_ that the rest of him is fast becoming, notes this, too, is perfectly familiar. The first time he had ever done this to Sirius, they were sixteen and covered in dust, crouched in an alcove in one of the secret passages. It was so dark he couldn't see Sirius's face, but the moans his experimentation evoked had both aroused him and frightened him – it was so loud, he thought they must be echoing through the entire castle. (They weren't.) It had been over very quickly. Remus had been excited, embarrassed, eager to repeat the experience as soon as possible and terrified of actually doing so. 

There had been fights and reconciliations, but those have faded to a blur in Remus's memory by now. Schoolboy quarrels ceased to be important long years ago, and all betrayals but the last had softened in his memory. Their first reunion, after thirteen years of hurt and confusion and half-healed scars, was painful in all the ways it could have been, when Sirius had returned just in time for the full moon and tried to help Remus the way he used to. Remus had not been himself, entirely, even after he changed back, and he thinks some of the scars marring Sirius's body still remain from that encounter. Sirius had kissed him, and not complained.

Remus is determined to be gentler this time, if only because he can. He wants to make this last, to savour having Sirius back again and – although he pushes the thought away – to have a memory of recent lovemaking not so tinged with hurt in case he ends up alone again. Second chances are uncommon, third ones unheard-of. Surely there is a limit even to Sirius's capacity for miracles; if he loses him again there will not be a fourth. 

“Moony.” Sirius's fingers are tangled in his hair, and his voice is rough with want. “Moony, you're drifting. Stay with me.” 

Remus stops dwelling, and for a few moments, if he is thinking at all, it is about how he is sure he used to be better at this. He is eager now, desperate, not artful – he cannot bring himself to tease, but only tries to swallow as much of Sirius as he can. His reward is hearing Sirius's moans deepen, his breath come faster, fingers twisting in Remus's hair, pushing at his head. 

Remus stops himself, pulls his head away to catch his breath, with Sirius trembling beneath him. “Moony–” He draws it out till a single syllable sounds like four, and his bony hips buck upward off the bed.

“Ssh,” Remus murmurs, but corrects himself almost immediately. “Well – no, don't ssh. I just don't want to end quite yet. Do you?” 

Sirius glares at him – his eyes dark, his face flushed, his expression dizzy. Remus wonders how he could ever have made the mistake of thinking him no longer beautiful. “You're a horrible tease.” It would be sharper if there were not so much joy in it.

Remus makes a non-committal noise, his fingers brushing light and teasing up the length of Sirius's eager cock, stretching out next to him. 

Sirius moans. “I love you.” 

Remus's fingers begin their journey back down. “Do you really, Padfoot? I would never have guessed.” 

Sirius laughs, and it's the most beautiful sound Remus has ever heard in his life. Sirius's hand closes around Remus's cock and he says, careless, “You used to be clever.” 

Remus groans, suddenly very aware indeed of just how long it's been since Sirius – since _anyone_ last touched him, and clever is the last thing he feels. It's like getting his head above water when he reluctantly pulls Sirius's hand away, gasping for breath. “Stop,” he begs, relieved when Sirius looks like he understands. Remus does not want him to stop, will never want him to _stop_ , but that isn't how he wants this to end. He thinks he's finally grasped what Sirius meant when he asked, _how do you want this to go?_

Sirius gives him a moment to remember how to breathe, a moment where he lies perfectly still and watches Remus, his chest rising and falling, heartbeat hammering beneath Remus's hand. But only a moment, and then he points out, conversationally, “Moony. I've waited such a long time already.” 

That he can still form words is both a surprise and a disappointment. Remus will have to remedy that, if only as an apology for the last few days, watching Sirius lurk around the edges of his vision while still pretending he had anything more important to attend to. He flattens himself against Sirius's body, kissing him fiercely. “I'm sorry.”

Sirius laughs again, high and giddy, one leg bending as his hips buck, grinding upward. “Don't be sorry. Just –” His hand flutters downward, vaguely. “ _Please._ ” 

Once, as an experiment, a seventeen-year-old Remus had made Sirius say that same word before every kiss, touch, movement – made him beg for everything, just to see if he could. He wonders if Sirius remembers. It was another of Remus's ideas that had rapidly spiraled out of control, as a younger Sirius, confined to a single word, could speak it with so many shades and layers of meaning that it was like learning a new language.

But this time, there is only one meaning, and Remus has no intention of making him repeat it. However much part of him would like to drag this out, he has neither youth's stamina nor age's patience, and Sirius is quite right, they have waited long enough. He crushes Sirius close in a blazing kiss, empty hand fumbling with seldom-used charms. Sirius rocks up against him, spreading his legs wider, soft hungry noises lost in the press of their mouths. 

At first he's forcing himself to take his time in preparation. This is its own apology too, for so many times when they haven't been careful enough – too recently human, too little time, too frustrated, too self-loathing – this time won't be like those. They _have_ the time, can spare a few minutes to do the thing properly, and besides he's not sure how much Sirius's worn, battered body can take. It stops being apology after a moment, has its own allure, as he feels Sirius respond, grinding against him and going loose and eager until he pulls his mouth away and _growls_ in Remus's ear – “Now, damnit, now –”

And of course Remus does. The initial sensation is one of the final piece of a puzzle fitting perfectly into place, the perfect image at last revealed. The image is Sirius's face, luminous with more than just moonlight. There is something unearthly about the glint of his eyes; Remus first forgets to breathe, then remembers how to move. Sirius clutches at him, arms tight around his back, moaning something pleading until Remus slips a hand between them and takes hold of his cock again. 

Being inside Sirius is exactly like Remus remembers, and at the same time not at all. Gone are the self-recriminations, the burning anger at being trapped, the hundred small wrong things that made up Sirius before, and reflected in his face Remus can see his much younger self, confident and damaged and glorious, devastatingly handsome and full of hope for the world. The past lies superimposed on Sirius as he is now – nearly broken, crossed with incomprehensible scars, bright as a supernova but almost transparent if you blink. Remus meets his eyes and holds them, gazes into his face even though it makes his eyes burn. He can see their whole painful history in Sirius's unfathomable eyes and he will remember it forever. Moonlight, shadow, and magic make Sirius's skin glow silver, and only when he whispers _yes_ does Remus realise he's been speaking too, the words tearing from his throat in time with his thrusts, _you came back, came back, came –_

Sirius is grasping at Remus's back fiercely, and when he comes, a shower of sparks like tiny stars burst from his fingertips and sizzle against Remus's skin. It jars what little remains of Remus's control and he empties himself into Sirius, all his skin tingling as he collapses against him. Sirius clutches at him, kisses the corner of his mouth, brushes limp strands of damp greying hair away from Remus's temple.

For a moment they lay tangled together, ragged breath slowly evening. Remus rouses himself at last enough to say, dryly – “Fireworks, Padfoot?” 

“Accident,” Sirius counters, smug and satisfied. “...But you're worth fireworks. It didn't hurt?” he adds, hopeful and worried. Remus shakes his head. 

“Only startled,” he promises. The sparks have dissipated, sunk into his skin; he can still feel their shadow but it isn't unpleasant. Sirius, satisfied with this answer, curls close against him, one arm flung over him, head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. Remus wraps both arms around him and holds him close. They are both sweat-slick and sticky, and Sirius shivers; Remus pulls the duvet up around his shoulders and doesn't even think about getting up. The sharp, musky scent of recent sex lingers in the air, mixed with the aroma of conjured flowers. Remus knows that by morning the arm Sirius is lying on will have fallen asleep, the physical evidence of their reunion will have dried on his skin, he'll be stiff from sleeping in the same position all night. It's been years since he had to make room for anyone else in his bed, let alone worried about them staying. Only Sirius has ever been this impossible to dislodge, and for that, Remus is profoundly grateful. 

His fingers stroke absently through Sirius's hair. He's tired, but it's an honest kind of tired, so far from the relentless, quiet despair he's felt for months. “Thank you,” he says at last, barely more than a breath. 

Sirius nestles closer, but doesn't open his eyes. That's probably for the best. “And to think,” he muses quietly, “there was a time you didn't think we'd last.” 

Remus's grip tightens. “That was twenty years ago,” he protests. “Of all the things for you to remember.”

The slight movement of a shrug against his chest. “It wasn't happy, so they didn't take it.” For the first time, there is no bitterness in Sirius's voice when he alludes to the years in Azkaban. After the Veil, there are no horrors left. “All those fights we had–even the part where we both thought the other was the traitor—it probably saved us, at least for me. So I'm glad for them.” 

Remus holds Sirius as tight as he can and tries to will away the tightening knot in the pit of his stomach. “Please don't.” He can't bear to think of Sirius that way, tortured and lost in Azkaban, and he wants to hold onto the tender joy of this reunion as long as he can. Sirius may have walked through so much fire by now that nothing else can burn him; Remus finds that he is not nearly so impervious. 

Sirius shifts and raises his head, gazing down at Remus solemnly. “All right, Moony,” he promises, and there is a soft flare of magic when his lips brush Remus's forehead. “Anyway, it's all right now. I'm here.” 

“You're here.” Even with so much physical proof, with magic tingling in his skin and an armful of Sirius, Remus can still hardly believe it. That, he supposes, will come in time. “You horribly embarrassed me in front of Harry by reciting poetry at me. You filled my room with flowers. You shot fireworks at me during sex.” 

Sirius's mouth is twitching, but he nods gravely. “Those do sound like things I would do.”

Remus kisses him again, because he can, and that is not something he will ever take for granted again. “I love you.”

For a moment, Sirius becomes too bright again—but Remus stares through him anyway, until dancing lights blur the edges of his vision. And just as suddenly his eyes adjust, and he knows that no matter how bright, how Real, how dazzling Sirius becomes, he will never have to look away again.


End file.
